Ch 10 - Political Turmoil

The Purge of 1519

After Cho Kwang-jo challenged the king's Merit Subject awards, enraged Merit Subjects convinced King Chungjong to move against "Cho Kwang-jo's clique." The resulting purge pitted the cautious conservatism of older, experienced politicians against young, impetuous Neo-Confucian literati whose actions and influence were seen as a grave threat to Yi society and the foundations of the dynasty.

The growing stature of the "men of 1519" aroused the animosity of the conservative Merit Subjects in government, men who began looking for any opportunity to turn King Chungjong against Cho Kwang-jo and his young zealots. Ironically, Cho himself presented them with their chance. Until now, he and the rural literati had only attacked and removed ministers from government individually. Now, at the height of their power, Cho's faction took on the Chungjong Merit Subjects in a frontal assault to rescind the Merit Subject awards.

In November 1519, Inspector-General Cho Kwang-jo labeled the Chungjong Merit Subject awards issued in 1506 as excessive and promiscuous. Though he acknowledged some of the Merit Subjects deserved enrollment, many did not. The Censorate and the OSC joined with the High State Council, the Board ministers, the Board Section Chiefs, the Diarists of the Office of Royal Decrees, and the Seoul Magistrate's office in mounting unrelenting pressure on King Chungjong to bow to public consensus on the matter. Under sustained pressure, Chungjong consented to stripping the titles of seventy-six of the ninety-nine living Merit Subjects, nearly three-quarters of the men rewarded for merit in raising him to the throne. The rural literati's victory rang hollow, for it gave the men who faced the imminent loss of their merit listings cause to regard Cho Kwang-jo with even greater hatred.

Hong Kyong-ju deeply resented his impeachment by the Censorate and removal from the position of Fourth State Counselor. Acting in concert with other enraged Merit Subjects, Hong began an offensive of his own against Cho Kwang-jo. He had his daughter, a royal concubine, spread the word around the palace that the entire country was turning to support Cho. Merit subject Sim Chong, the Lord of HwaChon, convinced a slave attendant to persuade the royal concubine Madame Pak to spread the word that Cho Kwang-jo and his supporters actually controlled the affairs of government and that the people were so pleased they wanted to elevate him to the throne. Through such persistent rumors, Hong and his group of senior ministers worked on Chungjong's fears and insecurity so well that, just four days after he consented to the revised merit roster, King Chungjong had become convinced that his own position might now be in jeopardy.

Sim Chong gave Hong Kyong-ju a secret letter to carry to the houses of a number of senior ministers to enlist them in a plot to kill Cho Kwang-jo and his followers. Afterward, Hong and a small group secretly notified the king that the men closest to him were all close compatriots of Cho Kwang-jo and there existed an imminent threat to his crown. They asked for, and received, permission to enter the palace under cover of darkness to report to the king on the growing crisis. They told King Chungjong of a rumored plot by a group of between thirty and forty military men to assassinate all the civil officials of Cho Kwang-jo's faction. If the government did not move first, they claimed, there would be grave disorder in the capital. Furthermore, should the government fail to prefer charges against Cho and his cohorts, there would be no way to avoid a violent purge.

At dusk on the evening of November 15, 1519, Hong Kyong-ju and a group of high ranking ministers slipped through the Sinmu Gate in the north wall of the Kyongbok Palace compound and presented their written charges to the king. The document accused Cho Kwang-jo and others of joining together in a clique, using their position to advance their supporters and to repudiate those who disagree with them. It also noted that many government officials feared the enormous power of these men and would not dare to speak out against them. Exaggerating the shocking and extreme danger of the situation, Hong and his group asked the king to immediately arrest the duty officers of the Royal Secretariat and the Office of Special Counselors and turn them over to judicial authorities for a determination of their crimes. They worked on the king's fear of reprisals so well that Chungjong moved against the eight leading figures of the Cho faction.

Hearing a commotion in the palace courtyard, the duty officers, Royal Secretary Yun Cha-im and Kong So-rin, Recorder An Chong and Third Diarist Yi Ku, rushed out and discovered the YongChu Gate in the west wall of the palace compound open. Blue uniformed troops were standing guard on either side of the Kunjong Audience Hall. Sitting outside the Royal Lecture Hall were Minister of War Yi Chang-gon, Minister of Works Kim Chon, Minister of Taxation Ko Yong-san, Lord Sim Chong, and Fourth Minister of War Song Un. While Secretary Yun Cha-im asked Minister Yi Chang-on how they managed to get into the palace grounds, word came from the royal quarters that Song Un had been appointed Royal Secretary and that through him, it was ordered that the duty officers of the Royal Secretariat and the OSC, Fourth counselor Ki Chun and Junior Sixth counselor Sim Tal-won, be handed over to the State Tribunal.

Hong Kyong-ju, Kim Chon, Chong Kwang-p'il, Yi Chang-gon, Ko Hyong-san, Sim Chong, Son Chu, Pang Yu-nyong, Kim Kun-sa, Song Un, and Yun Hui-in walked to the king's residence and requested that Inspector-General Cho Kwang-jo, Headmaster of the National Academy Kim Sik, First Counselor Kim Ku, First Royal Secretary Yu In-suk, and Royal Secretaries Pak Se-hui, Hong On-p'il, and Pak Hun be arrested, taken outside the royal palace and executed. Minister of War Yi Chang-gon suddenly realized what was unfolding;  Hong Kyong-ju, Minister of Rites Nam Kon and the others had actually plotted to have their victims beaten to death that very night  Minister Yi forcefully objected and asked that Chief State Councilor Chong Kwang-p'il be summoned to discuss the matter further.

King Chungjong summoned Councilor Chong and ministers An Tang and Hong Suk for a discussion. Councilor Chong tearfully spoke in a voice choked with emotion,

"The young literati are not conscious of what is appropriate to the times and what is not;  they seek only to evoke the past and apply it straightway to the present. But surely they are guilty of no other intent. Let us display a little tolerance. I ask the matter be discussed with all the high officials."

The king's anger had somewhat abated by this time and he relented to the release of all but eight prisoners:  Cho Kwang-jo, Kim Sik, Kim Chong, Kim Ku, Yun Cha-im, and Pak Se-hui, Ki Chun, and Pak Hun. The king retired for the night. As dawn broke over the capital city of Seoul, Nam Kon, Kim Chon, and Sim Chong were busy drafting criminal charges against the eight men for transmittal to the State Tribunal.

Word of the events of the night of the 15th quickly spread through the halls of government. A number of high-ranking government ministers defended Cho's group, including several second and third Ministers of the Six Boards and the Second and Third Seoul Magistrates. They expressed astonishment at the king's desire to lodge serious charges against the accused, who had merely endeavored to revitalize the nation's mores and purify the government. Some of them argued that Cho's only crime was "extremism," the result of King Chungjong's excessive tolerance. It was the king, after all, who "extraordinarily raised them all to vital positions" and "failed to heed not a single word they uttered." The king would be amply justified in censuring them for their extremism, but to charge them as criminals would endanger the principle of freedom of criticism and censure and raise the mounting anxiety in government. A group of over two hundred National Academy students forced their way through the gates of the palace compound one evening and carried their protestations that the accused were innocent of crime to the very door of the king's residence.

Despite the clamoring protests, King Chungjong remained adamant in his refusal to concede on the matter, asserting that the government had requested that charges of crime be preferred and that he would proceed to prosecute the men on this basis. The judicial proceedings in the State Tribunal lasted less than two days. The harsh sentences initially proposed for the Cho faction were reduced. Cho Kwang-jo, Kim Sik, Kim Chong, and Kim Ku were sentenced to one hundred strokes with a rod and banishment under confinement. Yun Cha-im, and Pak Se-hui, Ki Chun, and Pak Hun given fines and sentenced to banishment. All eight men were stripped of their office warrants.

The rising current of protest delayed but did not prevent the logical development of the impending purge. An uneasy peace prevailed, marked by clear indications that a climate of opinion uncompromisingly hostile to the Cho Kwang-jo group was in the making. The Censorate officials who had openly sided Cho Kwang-jo were replaced. In a few cases, their replacements were also removed when indications of a pro-Cho attitude became apparent. similar changes occurred in the OSC and the State Council.

The revamped Censorate soon launched a drive to increase the severity and scope of the purge. Simultaneously, the State Councilors were attacked for their lack of convictions in the critical period following Cho's downfall. Emboldened by the king's sympathetic response to these probes, the Censorate abandoned its indirect approach. It drew up a list of thirty-five "Cho Kwang-jo clique members" and asked for the same punishment as in the case of the minor four of the original eight purge victims, i.e. banishment under confinement. Upon hearing this request, Chungjong responded that,

"the reason why right and wrong have not been determined and men's minds are not yet settled is because of the failure of the High State councilors to perform their proper function."

After reminding the Censorate of the lenience that had been shown Cho Kwang-jo, Chungjong asserted that in his opinion the Censorate had not struck at the root of the problem. The king now announced his intention to "kill this root." He commanded Cho Kwang-jo to kill himself, banished the other seven primary accused, and, selecting eighteen men from the Censorate list, sentenced them to punishments ranging from banishment to loss of office warrants. By 1521, the purge had spent itself and most of the reforms begun by Cho and his group were rescinded or dropped altogether.

The purge of 1519 finally spent itself by 1521. At its heart, the purge represented a clash between the cautious conservatism of elder, experienced politicians and the radical idealism of impetuous Neo-Confucian youth who saw the world through the eyes of zealots. The fact that Choson's young civil servants repudiated their elders paled in comparison to the degree and totality of that rejection. The seeds of the political purge in Choson were deeply rooted in an institutional framework that encouraged, even required, such violent and severe conflict.

Clique forming ranked second in villainy only to overt treason on the long list of crimes against the state in sixteenth century Choson. The underlying motivations behind a clique were deemed selfish by definition and seditious in their ultimate aims. Regardless of how public-minded the actions of a clique of government officials might be, no matter how effective their policies or programs for the common good, they were seen as a real threat to the throne and dealt with accordingly. Choson's government was the "public," an collection of individuals privileged to serve the king at his pleasure, ever conscious of the privilege, and forever bound to preserve the individual character of that allegiance. The population of commoners and slaves rested at the bottom of society and their loyalty had to focus on the throne, for if it were attracted anywhere else it would be lost to the king.

Choson's sense of public spirit had little to do with benefiting the common man. "Public-spiritedness" consisted of working to reinforce the established order of things above all else. Toward that end, the common good was inseparably bound to the continuation of the Yi dynasty's ruling house. In one sense then, the greater the popularity and effectiveness of the policies espoused by any group of government officials, the greater their perceived threat to Choson's throne. The mere existence of an acknowledged leader who commanded a high level of respect and loyalty, the intolerance exhibited toward those who did not bow to the group's views or support its ends, dissatisfaction with various aspects of the established order and traditions - all these were familiar and authentic earmarks of a clique. Yi society regarded even the formation a clique as plowing the seedbed of full-blown treason, the unfailing preliminary to the overt act itself.

Those who set themselves in opposition to the Cho Kwang-jo clique and ultimately brought about its downfall may have been impelled by motives as pure as those that moved the clique members. Unlike earlier purges however, the fundamental devotion of the purge victims to the throne was never questioned, nor did the victors act with vindictiveness. The government believed that "Cho Kwang-jo's clique," as it was called, was misguided, that much of its reform program would harm the health of the body politic (government), and that the turbulence caused by its actions constituted a grave threat to Yi society and the foundations of the state. Cho Kwang-jo and the other "men of 1519" were purged principally because they wielded their paramount influence in a way that menaced other concentrations of power in the government. Their means to power had been the new weapon of criticism and censure, and the bastion of their power had been the censoring bodies. They had constituted themselves into a clique, cemented together by a common idealism, a common reform program, and a common intolerance for differing viewpoints. They left no room to satisfy the claims of others to a share in the ordering of the state. In the end, King Chungjong, acting in concert with other groups of politically privileged men, felt compelled to sanction their destruction.